Whatever you think of Jason Statham‘s movies, you can’t deny that Jason Statham works hard. He typically has at least a couple movies per year, and next year he has three. The first is Wild Card, a remake of the 1986 Burt Reynolds-starrer Heat. (Not to be confused with the 1995 Michael Mann movie Heat or 2013’s The Heat.)

Statham stars as a Las Vegas bodyguard who gets in hot water with a powerful mob boss. Michael Angarano, Sofia Vergara, Jason Alexander, Hope Davis, and Stanley Tucci also star. Watch the Wild Card trailer after the jump. Read More »

Did you know that the Internet can be a dangerous place? That’s more or less the premise of Henry-Alex Rubin‘s Disconnect, a Crash-style ensemble drama about the perils of the digital age.

That message comes about two decades late, and the execution looks about as subtle as a pornographic pop-up ad. But on the bright side, you could do much worse for casting than Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo, Michael Nyqvist, Paula Patton, Andrea Riseborough, Alexander Skarsgard, Max Thieriot, and Colin Ford. Watch the first trailer and check out the new poster after the jump.

Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy have boarded Rufus Norris‘ Broken, along with Rory Kinnear, Robert Emms, Zana Marjanovic, Bill Milner, and newcomer Eloise Laurence. The story, which was adapted by Mark O’Rowe (Boy A) from Daniel Clay‘s novel of the same title, follows a young girl whose life changes after she witnesses a brutal attack. Broken will be the first feature film by helmer Norris, an accomplished theater director.

Roth recently came off of three seasons as the lead of Fox’s Lie to Me, and will star in next year’s Arbitrage. Murphy will appear in this month’s sci-fi thriller In Time, and has several projects lined up for 2012 including the thriller Red Lights with Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver. [The Hollywood Reporter]

We’ve known the basics about Real Steel for a while: Shawn Levy directs the Disney/DreamWorks picture that stars Hugh Jackman as an ex-fighter who reinvents himself as a robot boxing mechanic/coach/promoter when human boxing is outlawed.

Now thanks to a script review, there are more details available about the film. Two warnings: first, some of this might have changed, as the film has been shot and the script draft referenced is not the final version. Second, there could be spoilers within, so if you’d rather wait for the trailer, stop reading now. Read More »

Hope Davis (About Schmidt), James Rebhorn (Independence Day, The Game) and Olga Fonda (Love Hurts) has been cast in Shawn Levy‘s futuristic robot boxing movie Real Steel. No word on what roles they will play.

Golden Globe nominated actor Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers, Windtalkers) has joined the cast of Jon Favreau‘s big screen adaptation of the graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens. Beach will play Nat Colorado, a half-Apache who works for Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (played by Harrison Ford).

My favorite film from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival is the feature film debut of screenwriter John August (Go, Big Fish). There isn’t really any way to describe The Nines without ruining much of the plot. The plot summery I’ve seen floating around the web describes the film:

A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

The new movie trailer probably reveals too much. What are The Nines? It’s a JJ Abrams style mystery/character drama which will have you talking the whole car ride home. Check out the trailer after the jump.

I was leaving a screening of Arctic Tale with one of my buddies (also a film reviewer) on Saturday morning when we noticed a poster for a movie titled Charlie Bartlett. It’s funny because I’ve never heard next to nothing about the film, yet something drew us over to the one-sheet. May-be it was the cast list which included Robert Downey Jr and Hope Davis. Nope, it was probably the fact that we had heard nothing about the film. And for someone that writes about movies for a living to come across a film that I didn’t know was approaching is rare. And it’s not like the poster was teasing a way off release date, Bartlett hits theaters in exactly one month (August 3rd).

But what really got me curious was a review I read tonight from someone who saw the film at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

“All I can say is SEE THIS MOVIE. If you’ve been waiting to see a real teen movie since 1985 when the credits to The Breakfast Club stopped rolling, the genie has granted your wish. This is a rated-R honest to god funny, real, touching teen flick. And if you want more of them, I implore that you support this one,” Duke wrote. “If you like the works of Wes Anderson, John Hughes, Hal Ashby or just have a penchant for dramedies and teen flicks this one is for you. The most comparable movie in recent years is probably Igby Goes Down, but this is less jaded.”

Wow, what a pretty bold statement. So I decided to seek out the film’s theatrical trailer. And one does exist, although you probably wouldn’t know it. MGM is doing a horrible job promoting this film (in complete fairness, the release is smaller and the promotion will probably ramp up in the next few weeks), especially if it’s even half as good as the reviewer claims. The trailer shows a lot of promise. Check it out after the jump.

There were 5 movies we really loved at this year’s Sundance. One of them was screenwriter John August’s directorial debut The Nines. GreeneStreet quickly scooped up the international rights, but we worried that the film might not get distribution in the U.S. because of its unique unconventional narrative. Well good news, Newmarket and Sony have partnered for US distribution (Newmarket will do theatrical, Sony will do home video).

“If you’ve got a challenging indie with geek appeal, they’re your distributor of choice,” August wrote in a recent blog post. The Nines is a movie which some people love fanatically, yet leaves other people scratching their heads. Newmarket has a great track record with this kind of film, and won’t try to market it as something it’s not. They’re small, and can give it the kind of steady nurturing it needs.”